team – Platypus

In September, Mesh Research, including the entire Humanities Commons team, met for a one-week, in-person retreat at Michigan State University (more on our retreat to come!).

At the retreat, we spent some time thinking and discussing our use of Generative AI (GAI). GAI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Bard are increasingly part of a multitude of tasks in our daily lives. We want to let you know how we are currently using generative AI (GAI) in our workflows and how we are thinking about it for the future. As the Commons is sponsored, hosted, and developed at Michigan State University, we’ve taken our initial guidance from the MSU Interim Guidance on Data Uses and Risks of Generative AI. Currently we are not using GAI in the creation of content (images or written) or user experience data collection. We do use GAI to assist in authoring code, using tools such as GitHub Copilot, though always interactively with a human developer. In the spirit of our value of experimentation, we are also starting to investigate the use of GAI, such as ChatGPT, for data analysis.

Whenever possible, we will use tools or versions of tools that do not train on or learn from our usage. You can always count on us to have a human in the loop; any code or content generated by AI is reviewed by a member of the team before its use. We do not intend to use GAI to outsource our work, but to enhance it.

We will continue to discuss GAI in our meetings and revisit tools and techniques at least quarterly. When and if we do move forward with GAI in other parts of our operations, we are committed to letting you know here on the blog and in the newsletter. We’d also love to hear from you about ways you would like to see HC engage with GAI in the future!

Improving accessibility in all areas of our work is fundamental to our ambition to create more just and equitable scholarly communications. In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we here at Humanities Commons wanted to let you know about some of the work we’re doing behind the scenes to both improve accessibility for site users and to learn and grow as a team. Here are four ways we are putting our commitment into action:

Group Meetings On Topics Related to Accessibility: We’ve integrated accessibility-related topics into our regular working group meetings. This has included watching and reflecting on Axe-Con talks as a team and discussing how to bring inclusive design to all stages of our process.

User Experience Design: From our website to our workshops to our pdfs, you’ll see some design choices and changes coming that aim to increase accessibility throughout the Humanities Commons experience. For example, we will be moving to Atkinson Hyperlegible as our default font. Created by the Braille Institute, this font is designed to increase character recognition and improve readability for visually impaired readers..
User Experience Research: We’ve started whole team conversations about the process of user experience research and integrating a diverse range of voices and perspectives into our testing and conversations. We look forward to working with the community this summer and beyond to learn with and from you about your needs and experiences.

Team Training: Over this coming summer, our team will be taking accessibility fundamentals from Deque University, as well as additional Deque University courses tailored to our daily tasks, and meeting in early Fall to work on integrating what we have learned into our workflows.

We’re excited to share with you more in each of these areas as we continue to meet and grow as a team. And, of course, we’d love to hear from you if you have ways that you’d like to see our site improve!

Tag: team

An Update from the Commons about our Generative AI Use

Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day